Saturday, May 5, 2012

Latino/Spanish artists at Charlton: Luis Avila (1) - Teen Confessions 50

Out of This World has hitherto focused on various themes - romance comics, nurses in comics, diversity in comics (including anti-racist propaganda and desegregation of the comic book medium), and British girls' comics. Certain artists have also been given attention, notably Demetrio Sanchez Gomez. 'Demetrio', as he signs his work, is one of a number of Spanish/Latino artists who were drawing for Charlton and DC romance comics in the late 60s and well into the 1970s. The Charlton romance comics of this period often contained one story of superior artistic quality (usually but not always the third and last in the book), and many of these were drawn by those Spanish/Latino artists. Besides Demetrio, there was Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, who did a lot of superhero work for DC, but also a number of other, less well-known artists. One such was Luis Avila. A search in the Grand Comics Database suggests that in American comics he only worked for Charlton. The table below includes all the works attributed to him in the Database, in chronological order of publication:


Date
Title
#
Story
#pages
Signed
Cover
08/67
I Love You
69
Where happiness lies
8
Y
(V Avila)
N
10/67
I Love You
70
Too many kisses
8

Y
12/67
Love Diary
52
I betrayed you, darling!
8

Y
2/68
Love Diary
53
Unfaithful heart
8

Y
6/68
Love Diary
54
A few lies, many tears
10

Y
7/68
Teen Confessions
50
I’ll be your kind of girl, darling!
10
Y
Y
8/68
Love Diary
55
I too am in love
8

Y
11/68
Just Married
61
I’ll be a modern wife
8

Y
7/69
Romantic Story
101
Flee from heartbreak
8
Y
Y
8/69
Love Diary
61
A soldier’s promise
8

Y
10/69
Career Girl Romances
53
How to succeed in love
10
Y
Y
11/69
Teen-Age Love
67
No good!
10
Y
Y
12/69
Romantic Story
104
A heart of gold
10
Y
Y
1/70
Grand Prix
29
Not for reel
7
Y

1/70
I Love You
83
A Frenchman’s Kiss
10
Y
Y
1/70
Love Diary
64
Nobody kisses a goddess
10
Y
Y
3/70
I Love You
84
Drop out!
10
Y
Y
5/70
Time For Love
16
Love lies deep and cold
10
Y
N
7/70
I Love You
86
Happiness guaranteed
10
Y
Y
4/71
Career Girl Romances
62
No time for kisses
5
Y
Y
4/71
Teen Confessions
67
Moonlight should be shared
9
Y
Y
5/71
I Love You
91
Beyond love
9

Y
10/71
Sweethearts
119
Men are unessential
8
Y
Y
1/72
Love Diary
76
Is this all there is?
9
Y
N
4/72
Just Married
84
Once we were happy
9

Y
7/72
Hot Rods and Racing Cars
115
Desert madness
7

N
5/73
For Lovers Only
71
Second chance
9
Y
Y
6/73
Career Girl Romances
75
My love returned
9
Y
Y
8/73
Time For Love
35
An ancient spell
9

Y
9/73
Teen Confessions
82
Tomorrow is now
9

Y
10/73
Time For Love
36
Betrayed by a kiss
9
Y
N
9/74
For Lovers Only
75
The whispering
9
Y
Y
12/74
Just Married
103
Putting it together
9

N

Upcoming Out of This World posts will be focusing on Avila and some of the other artists providing romance stories to Charlton in the specified time frame. Today's post features "I'll Be Your Kind of Girl, Darling!" from the July 1968 issue of Teen Confessions (#50). The story is about a high school senior who best friend of many years has started skipping school to hang out with the 'in' crowd, especially a motor-bike riding young man who graduated last year but then didn't go to college despite having a scholarship. Our protagonist is a very sophisticated and mature for her age young lady who bides her time, makes all the right moves, and ends up with the desirable guy, gets her friend back in school, gets him back on the college track, and gets a very nice mod look in the process. Avila's art tends to remind the reader of fashion model poses from the period (e.g. Twiggy, Mary Quant) - there's a lot of posing going on in the story as well! It is visually attractive and draws the attention of the eye. The script is reasonable, but a couple of word balloons seem to be inaccurately assigned. It is a notch up from much of Charlton's art, and refreshingly different for American comic book art of the time. Spanish/Latino artists did a lot of romance and other comic book genre art in Europe in the 60s and 70s, including in the UK, and their distinctive styles seem to have a more European rather than North American look. Here's the story from Teen Confessions 50 - see what you think!

 
 

The mod backgrounds in some panels, along with the hairstyles and clothes, make it an interesting cultural artifact, in addition to it being an example of a particular style of art and of the romance comic genre.

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